Diversity, Equality and Inclusion
Mckinsey's 5 recommendations from their 2020 report lay out great actions that organisations can take to achieve these goals.
They took a close look at more diverse companies, which they had seen are more likely to outperform financially. The common thread for these diversity leaders is a systematic approach and bold steps to strengthen inclusion.
Drawing on best practices from these companies, their report highlights five areas of action:
Promote openness and tackle microaggressions
Companies should uphold a zero-tolerance policy for discriminatory behaviour, such as bullying and harassment, and actively help managers and staff to identify and address microaggressions. They should also establish norms for open, welcoming behaviour and ask leaders and employees to assess each other on how they are living up to that standard.
Strengthen leadership accountability and capabilities for I&D 2
Companies should place their core-business leaders and managers at the heart of the I&D effortâbeyond the HR function or employee resource-group leaders. In addition, they should not only strengthen the inclusive-leadership capabilities of their managers and executives but also more emphatically hold all leaders to account for progress
on I&D.
Enable equality of opportunity through fairness and transparency
To advance toward a true meritocracy, it is critical that companies ensure a level playing field in advancement and opportunity. They should deploy analytics tools to show that promotions, pay processes, and the criteria behind them, are transparent and fair; debias these processes; and strive to meet diversity targets in their long-term workforce plans.
Ensure the representation of diverse talent.
This is still an essential driver of inclusion. Companies should focus on advancing diverse talent into executive, management, technical, and board roles. They should ensure that a robust I&D business case designed for individual companies is well accepted and think seriously about which forms of multivariate diversity to prioritize (for example, going beyond gender and ethnicity). They also need to set the right data-driven targets for the representation of diverse talent.
Foster belonging through unequivocal support for multivariate diversity
Companies should build a culture where all employees feel they can bring their whole selves to work. Managers should communicate and visibly embrace their commitment to multivariate forms of diversity, building a connection to a wide range of people and supporting employee resource groups to foster a sense of community and belonging. Companies should explicitly assess belonging in internal
surveys.
Exploring diversity
Does your company really understand the term âdiversityâ?
As a recruitment specialist a lot has changed during my 25 years in the sector.
At the start, I used to experience something now referred as âmicroaggressionsâ, which could be verbal or physical, intentional or unintentional, but are mainly targeted towards minority groups.